Thursday, 29 March 2012

Transcript of "Men not marrying? How deep does "the problem" go?"

Okay, so an online friend of mine was spitting mad after reading this recent effort on the part of I can only assume to be a traditionalist woman, in trying to figure out what the heck is wrong with men these days. As so many traditionalists and feminists before her, she missed the mark by a freaking mile, even though she did dance dangerously close (within 100 miles or so) of a few of the core issues that currently discourage men from being good little married drones like they're supposed to be, dammit.

Despite being critical of feminist attitudes that she rightly sees as anti-male, the article was absurdly gynocentric. It was very much about what women want, and there was a lot of expectation that men *should* do what women want when they want it--that is, get married and have babies on HER schedule as decided by her. One has to wonder if she even bothered to ask any actual unmarried males WHY they are refusing or not bothering to "man up" before writing her article.

But as I said, it did at least poke at the surface of the festering boil that is the systemic nature of "the problem", even if it didn't give it the lancing it truly deserved. Her conclusion was "why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? And why get a good job when women are so independent they can just give the milk away for nothing?" Both are backhanded criticisms of women's behavior (yay, for someone brave enough to blame women for their own troubles), but they fall far short of any sort of true examination of the issues.

So I'm going to give it the old college try, and give a bit of an overview of what I believe has become a multifaceted problem.

A recent examination from Heartiste said a very great deal, and with some serious literary flair (pearls of wisdom from that pit of social nihilism that is the pick-up artist community). I'm just going to quote some of the relevant bits and leave a link to the article below:

If you want to know why men are running away from marriage, children and beta provisioning, one major reason is that the women available to these working class men are flat out disgusting. Take a look for yourself. What man of normal mental health and active libido wants to romantically woo and date, let alone marry, a beastly, waddling tatted mountain of pustulence with the issue of three other men barking and nipping at her cankles?

And let’s not forget that economically empowered and government-assisted women, slaves to their hypergamous impulse for higher status mates than themselves, can’t help but winnow the pool of men deemed acceptable marriage material. When women say “there are no good men left”, what the astute observer hears is “there are no good men left thanks to a combination of my increased expectations and decreased attractiveness.”

He goes on to say:

to the factory-farmed ivory tower sociologists studying marriage trends and turning out paper after paper of half-assed hogwash: there’s a whole other world out there. It’s the world of men, and in that world, men’s desires matter. You should think about incorporating that ugly reality into your theories.

Hey, Heartiste--why don't you tell us how you really feel. As blistering as that little snippet was, it raises some very important points, I think the most important of which is that MEN'S DESIRES MATTER. When men cannot find women THEY desire who are willing to partner with them, why would they partner?

And I think it's important to note that the reality of divorce and family law in our culture plays a HUGE part in men's growing contempt for marriage as an institution. It's not that men are commitment-phobes. It's that women seem increasingly commitment-incompatible. The word "commitment" has in fact, in female parlance, come to mean, "up until the moment I'm no longer 100% satisfied with the person I married". And that attitude is only going to lead to more and more divorces as more and more successful women effectively set their sights higher than they reasonably should while their youth and attractiveness wanes, leading to a growing number of them feeling like they settled even if they didn't--even if they scored someone 2 points above them on the overall attractiveness scale.

And oddly enough, no one, least of all women, seem to really give a shit what MEN desire in a partner. Why can't men just be happy with what's available? Well, let's look at what's available to the *average* man in his 30s: a 35 year old woman who hollers yes over the jangling of her biological clock while unable to keep the grimace from her face because he's a bigger loser than the 5 guys she dumped in her 20s and now she has to settle, a divorcee who's already financially annihilated and emotionally crippled at least one man, and a single mother who's collecting reams of child support from one poor schmuck while her other baby daddy manages to duck his obligations because he's a drug dealer and his income's off the books.

And yes, I'm exaggerating, but you see my point.

And no, not all women are like that. But frankly, the consensus among today's women seems to be that this state of affairs is the new normal, and even responsible women will often frame such destructive choices on the part of other women as somehow valid and defensible. The sentiment in the mainstream is that men should just man up and go along with Pairing Up 2.0: Who Cares What Men Want?, that essentially, a given woman's behavior and life choices should have no effect on whether she is able to attract a good, reliable man...this does not speak well of the principles of even those women who are more well-situated. In fact, I think it's safe to say that the fewer female voices of reason there are out there the more men are likely to wash their hands of the entire idea of partnering.

But I honestly think it goes deeper than even the baggage the average unattached woman now carries, or the danger of ending up an emotionally and financially devastated statistic with "generous" every-other-weekend access to one's children that is keeping men from "manning up".

I've been thinking of the White Feather Girls. For those who don't know, it was a group of young women in the UK during WWI who bestowed a white feather of cowardice on any man they saw in civilian clothes, to shame them into enlisting.

And when I consider how vulnerable so many men were to those kinds of shaming tactics, vulnerable enough to enlist in a war that killed 10 million to preserve their manhood in the eyes of women they'd never met, I simply can't believe that it's only the risks of marriage, as onerous as they are, that have rendered men impervious to the kinds of shaming tactics employed by traditionalists and feminists who seem increasingly desperate to strong-arm men into their old roles.

I think at the very core of it, it's about a positive male identity. Male identity almost always revolves around doing, rather than being. Most of that doing has always revolved around being of use in a uniquely male context. Most of men's usefulness through history has derived from learning "male" skills and performing them well, embodying a male role in the service of women or society. In the more turbulent past, those roles needed to perform a valuable service to women or the community that women could not--or should not be expected to--perform for themselves.

This is the most common path to a positive male identity BECAUSE MEN LACK A MECHANISM FOR AUTOMATIC OWN-GROUP PREFERENCE. Simply put, they do not relate to other men automatically, just because they're men.

Women have this bias, which provides them a natural ability to form cooperatives, relate to other women, and seek consensus though their strong mechanism for own-group preference based on gender alone. Given their gender roles through most of human history, this mechanism makes sense. Their individual value as, to put it bluntly, breeders, meant that in a survivalist environment, you didn't throw a woman on the trash pile without a pressing reason. Adjustments were made when possible to keep as many women as you could within the sisterhood. This is where you find a ton of attention in female spaces given to things like "tone" and "being nice" and "getting along" even when there are disagreements. It's all about comfort level and feelings of acceptance.

Men, however, lack the hardwiring to form a preference for maleness based merely on maleness. And that only makes sense when you think about men's roles for the last couple million years or so--roles that involved things like beating the guys down the valley to a pulp when they threatened his women and children, and competing against other males within his community for a shot at the mating game. Given those roles, automatically siding with one's own gender over the other is...well, it just doesn't work.

And it's not that men cannot manifest a form of own-group preference, it's just that when own-group preference manifests in males, it can't be based on maleness alone. There must be a common purpose, a common set of ideals, a common duty or cause, a common doing or a common position in the status hierarchy.

Men can indeed identify with each other and be team players among other men--you see it in churches, military units, fraternities, sports teams and even sports fans, political parties, movements, project teams. While they will often form hierarchies within those contexts, those realms can be sources of a sense of loyalty and brotherhood among men.

The myth among feminists that men will insult each other for displaying feminine traits because they see women as inferior is just that--a myth. Men do this because women have a trump card that bestows intrinsic value on them--their uteruses--and they retain that value even when they gender-bend a little. A woman who acts like a woman is not seen as inferior. A man who acts like a woman has always been seen not as a woman, but as a "woman without a womb". He has no female value, and he has no male value. Therefore, he has NO value at all. And unlike women, men who were not "useful" did--and still do--get thrown on the trash heap of society.

In the currency of reproduction, an ovum goes for a thousand bucks, a uterus is worth a cool mill, and an ejaculation about 10 cents. To be acceptable mating material, and worth keeping around, a man had to do more than generate sperm. And when the only thing keeping you from becoming completely disposable as an individual lies in differentiating yourself from the feminine, well, guys gonna enforce that shit.

This is why men have always tended to define themselves by their roles. Father, husband, working man, soldier, career man, family man, middle class man, politician, activist, etc...in other words, roles to exist in which allow them to relate to other men who also occupy those roles, and to derive a positive and meaningful identity from performing their masculinity through those roles.

And I think this may be why suicide rates for men skyrocket after divorce--you have not just taken away his kids, his wife, his assets and a chunk of his income. You've effectively stripped him of a huge part of the male identity he's built around himself.

So I'm thinking that for most men, forming a positive male identity in relation to other males requires a couple of things--a male role that is differentiated from the female one (or at the very least, a male-oriented environment) and, well, positivity.

Men used to be able to derive a positive male identity from marriage. That is, through the respected and uniquely male role of husband and father. When that identity is increasingly characterized by society as superfluous, obsolete, or in the words of Harriet Harman, unnecessary to social cohesion, it is no longer a way for a man to defer his disposability, is it? Moreover, when that identity can be unilaterally stripped from him on the whim of the increasingly fickle and hard to please female even when he does everything right, marriage ceases to be a positive way for men to define themselves as men. It becomes a way for men to define themselves as chumps and idiots, and who wants to define themselves that way? Moreover, from sitcoms to romcoms to TV commercials, to billboard ads, the role of husband/father is increasingly one of playing the incompetent buffoon to sassy, smart, together wife or even child. In the mass media there is nothing noble or respectable about husbandhood or fatherhood anymore. Further, when the roles within marriage become virtually indistinguishable and interchangeable, a man's role becomes less and less...well, uniquely male. It's just a role. It can be a path to meaning and fulfilment (if he's lucky), and it may be something he desires to do and become, but it's not necessarily a path to defining himself AS A MAN.

So we can scratch that one off the list--even for men who've been living under a rock when it comes to divorce law. Marriage and children no longer offer a reliable path to a positive male identity. It is no longer positive, nor is it significantly differentiated from the feminine.

The workplace is yet another milieu that has largely lost its maleness. And that's not to say that women ruined everything. It is not so much the presence of women but rather the alterations in environment and interaction many women demand when they want to engage the world through the paid workforce. A male space that leads to a positive male identity need not be free of women, but it still needs to be male--men need an environment that suits their psychology, not one in which they must be metaphorically castrated in order to steer clear of trouble with HR. And I'm not even talking about vulgarity or expressions of sexuality, but aggression, ambition, ribbing, competition, passion, authority, and plain speech--all of these are often discouraged when women are present, in order to spare feelings and prevent discomfort. Outspokenness is replaced with drawing room rules of discourse and ingenuity with protocol, all of which render a feminized workplace, though tolerable to men, no longer a path to a positive MALE identity.

Because it is no longer a male space, and no longer appeals to the psychology of men, the workplace has become a ladder fewer men feel driven to climb in order to construct their identities. Combine this with the fact that we handicap men through quotas and affirmative action for women, well... a large number of men are not only becoming disenchanted with the expectation to perform in an environment that does not feed their natures and has set them up to fail--in the absence of those uniquely male-centered psychological rewards and motivators, a growing number are finally opening their eyes and waking up to the negative aspects of wage-slavery. And that is a pill that, once taken, cannot be unswallowed.

In every space males congregate where women have elbowed their way in and demanded changes, you seem to find large numbers of men giving ground and eventually losing their drive to perform there. And again, I don't think it's the presence of women that does this--it's the enforced necessity to change one's behavior in order to maintain a proper decorum around them, and the changes in how those places function that women often demand. It's the expectation that the environment and the men in it adjust to suit women's needs, rather than expecting women to adjust themselves to the environment.

A few bastions of maleness remain, places where women are often welcome right up until they begin to demand the environment change to suit them, at which point the male protests begin. Hell, you can even see this tolerance on the part of men when women sneak into the men's room when the line-up is too long for the women's bathroom. It's all good unless she takes offence at men behaving the way men do in a restroom by farting and pissing in her presence.

So where are men retreating to? The internet, and the few men's spaces that have not tailored their rules of conduct to suit women's easily offended natures and need for comfort. The MRM, where a common set of ideals and values bonds the community and allows them to define their maleness irrespective of society's or women's approval. A place where words and ideas are more important than the tone or the smiles that may or may not lie behind them.

The hierarchy and uniquely male objectives of the pick-up artist community, where competition and scorekeeping are indeed still allowed, where there are men for others to admire or to mentor, and where they thumb their noses at what women say they want. Society wasn't working for them, so they invented their own society and they're running with by their own rules.

Video games and related forums. Online venues where refusals to police speech are deemed misogyny and the men there don't give much of a fuck.

Men going their own way, who've taken a stand based on a realistic assessment of what's in it for them, and maintain their self-respect not by complying with society's expectations but by disregarding them.

Beer and buddies, hook-up culture, and part time jobs men tolerate but don't care about.

Gynocentrism--the manginas and white knights who supplicate and pander to the feminine even when it's ugly or amoral, differentiating themselves from the feminine through their blind worship of it.

And why? Because all of the "approved" paths to a positive male identity, the paths society both endorses and depends on, are gone. And even when men don't consciously realize this, they know it somewhere in the backs of their brains. Men have always worked and sacrificed and sweated and bled if they were rewarded with a means through which to see themselves as worthy of respect. But when every role society wants to cram you into is no longer a way to respect yourself, then it's time to throw those roles away.

And one thing the apexuals at the top, like Bill Bennett and Obama, feminists like Kaye Hymowitz and Katie Roiphe, and traditionalists like Suzanne Venker, will never realize is that using shame to try to coerce men to do what is expected of them isn't going to work this time, because while it's possible to shame a man into giving his life for his country if there's a promise of respect in it, it's impossible to shame someone into working his ass off and risking his future just for the joy of looking in the mirror and seeing Homer Simpson or Ray Barone looking back at him.

When the cost of society's approval is the self-respect you derive from a positive identity, it ceases to be worth it to a lot of men.

90 comments:

I don't have anything pertinent to this specific video to say, but I would like to express my appreciation for your videos. Your perspective never ceases to amaze me. I always feel as if a veil is being lifted from my eyes, and I come away seeing gender interactions in our society in a whole new light. Whatever your intent is with these videos, I feel like I can safely say they've managed to make me reevaluate my take on masculinity in our modern culture, moreso than any man has been able to do.

I appreciate what you say, and I feel like you give words to feelings I haven't found means to express. Please keep posting. From a man, it's much appreciated.

My intent is simple, really. I'd like my kids to grow up in a more balanced society, and I'd like to see everyone treated like human beings with inherent value. I'll continue posting until I run out of things to say, which I'm guessing will be never. :)

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Have you ever thought about writing a book? I work for a literary agency and believe that there is a distinct market for a focused effort on the Men's Movement in today's media landscape. I would love to discuss further, but can't seem to find a way to message you directly...

Howdy, ads1. I have indeed given a great deal of thought to writing a book on this.

It's definitely going to be a major project that's going to eat a lot of time and energy, so it's sort of in the "outlining and structuring in my head" stages at the moment. And I know a fair bit about publishing, enough to know that if you want to do non-fic and you have no credentials, you usually need a platform, so I've been trying to build that.

Like you, I believe that unless female behavior in the West changes dramatically, there will be a backlash that will make women's heads spin. When men as a group have finally decided that they've had it, women may be lucky to be able to call the kitchen "home."

I dislike this prospect intensely, as I'm father to two beautiful girls just heading into college.

Unfortunately, men can't change the situation. If I were to voice your opinions in front of women, I would be skewered from all directions. Even my immediate siblings would favor disowning me.

No man can say what you do. Only women can (and at that, I bet you get death threats from other women).

Men simply can't speak about such things except among other men. If there is any hope, it is that women like yourself will be heard and heeded.

So write the book. I'd buy a copy. Maybe two or three, and leave them in select women's restrooms ... >:)

I'm a queer woman married to a queer man (we personally practice gender roles as fluid and less important), and I can see how that backlash would come about. Several years ago, I decided to leave the feminist movement because it no longer represented me, and I am now completely out and fully a member of the LGBTQ rights movement instead. The point discussed in this article – that a man who acts like a woman is just "a woman without a uterus" – can be seen in spades on any anti-trans radical feminist blog, which, by the way, is most of them.

Transpeople are more hated than any other member of the LGBTQ community, and face a higher risk of violence and death than any other "alphabet letter." So naturally, the radical feminists declare that trans women are, indeed, nothing more than "men without a uterus who want to infiltrate women-only spaces with their patriarchal privilege" (their words, not mine – check out a blog like Femonade sometime and you'll see the ugliness in its blazing glory), and have been waging a campaign of de-humanization against them for years.

Of course, I would be remiss if I let the rad-fem hatred toward trans men go unmentioned, too. Check out blogs like "Dirtywhiteboi – The Dirt from Dirt," where young boys in the middle of their transitions get their photos published, and get openly mocked by a bitter old rad-fem dyke who believes for some insane reason that all these transitioning boys are merely "lesbians who are too ashamed to present as butch." Yeah, whatever, you bitter old bigot. Dirt, and people like her only reinforce the razor-thin line men must walk in order to successfully perform masculinity.

Radical feminism is nothing more than a hate group by a different name. They openly condone violence against men, but reserve a special, higher level of wrath for transpeople because they flout society's script. Born male, trans women opt out of rigidly defined masculinity, and they must be punished for it. Born female, trans men flout society's expectations for masculinity (and are "traitors to the female gender," besides), so they, too must be punished.

So I am done with the feminist movement. Now, let's talk about my openly bisexual husband and street harassment.

Having married a man who gets spat at and called "fag" when we go out to the club and he is dressed like David Bowie – take him out of jeans and work boots, and suddenly, it's inconceivable that we could be married – I do not tolerate narrow definitions of masculinity. But apparently, some feminists do. On our local (Midwestern) city's message board, some young women were discussing the horrors of street harassment, aka men whooping at them as they walked by. I brought up the problem of my husband's bi-shaming when he does not present as "100% masculine." Know what the response was? Dead silence! I got not ONE acknowledgment of what my husband goes through. Fascinating, coming from feminists who purport to care about equal rights for "everyone."

Am I whooped at and harassed when out alone? If I dress as a high femme – which I choose not to do when I go out alone most of the time – sure. But my husband, because he does not perform masculinity in the narrow, "correct" way, is at much greater risk for violence and worse than I am if he flouts his gender's expectations for performance. At 5'3" with a slight frame, I cannot defend him against most harassers, should things turn violent, either. I wonder why no one cares?

Is my husband just supposed to "take it like a man?" I guess so. Spectacular.

I am not straight, so I'm not knowledgeable enough on how het marriages work to comment on them, but I know a backlash is coming, and I hope I am old or dead by the time it arrives. I have been an ally and friend to men and I don't wish to pay for the mistakes of feminist extremists.

I came into my marriage with a lot more money than my husband, and until recently (laid off, replaced by 22 y/o woman with no tech skills who would work for $10/hr), earned a lot more, too. I've always been the higher earner in my relationships, same-sex or opposite-sex. I would get fucked hard in an alimony court either way. When I bring up alimony to many women, explaining that as more of them get careers, more of them will be in my shoes – situated to be taken for everything they're worth in alimony court, in the event of divorce – I get a lot of blank stares. It seems that I'm one of very few women who is willing to consider the downsides of taking on a male role. It also seems I'm one of very few women who feels that the basic tenets of the men's movement make total sense. (However, I'm not down with the call to take away my right to vote and chain me to the kitchen, as the likes of "Internet Superintelligence" *snort* V. Day/Teddy Beale advocates.)

Right to refuse paternity is another great example. I am offended at the idea of my state forcing me to be a breeding vessel against my will, but I am equally offended at my state forcing my husband to pay 18 years of salary he doesn't have because he left a few sperm behind one night when the condom broke. It's like sex is this thing people must be punished for...most men should suffer financially, and some women should suffer physically. My state is rated F on abortion rights because the ladies here can barely get one – but we still get a better deal than the guys, who are automatically forced into child support once paternity tests prove them to be the fathers.

So I know there is a backlash against feminism, and I don't 100 percent blame the people perpetuating it – although I do find people like Roissy (aka Heartiste), Vox/Teddy Beale, et. al. to be wastes of human life and space. But so are the – female – authors of Femonade and Dirty White Boi, so there you go. I guess I am just scared that I will lose my access to a legal abortion and a fulfilling career, and be forced into a gender role I hate. If I can't leave the country, I guess I'll transition to being a man (I'm so lucky my husband is bi), because I would sooner kill myself than endure pregnancy, motherhood, and housewifery. Like many of your male commenters, as well as the women in my professional field (interactive high-tech, which is male dominated, and a place where men's rules still apply), I define myself by doing and creating. And some men might NOT want serious careers, like my husband. So these rigid gender roles need to go – for EVERYONE.

I used to think I could count on feminism to have my back, but that's not the case. One sect of feminism is obsessing about Slut Walk and informed consent (in my open marriage, where I sleep with women, the details of informed consent make me a rapist, yay), and the other sect is busy plotting how to maim or even kill men and trans people (as well as all women who don't 100 percent agree with them).

Humanity is screwed I guess. Any wonder I am such a misanthrope? Maybe it's time for the reasonable people to revolt. Why leave the revolution to the extremists?

Your comments were illuminating, but I'd just like to chime in on your last (tongue-in-cheek) sentence.

"Maybe it's time for the reasonable people to revolt. Why leave the revolution to the extremists?"

Revolution breeds extremism in otherwise reasonable, rational people. Feminism was at the forefront of the sexual revolution, an important milestone in our society, but the mechanisms of revolution turned many to radicalization.

Feminism has a unit, if you will. That unit is a group of female activists with a shared ideological goal, same as the basic unit of a political party, religious sect, video game and soccer fans. It is an essential feature, as it enables the group to effectively promote their cause.

There is another effect of it, however, and that is the dreaded "group-think". And once you start looking for it, you see it fucking everywhere; in a group with shared views, especially if those views fall outside of a perceived norm, the opinions of those in the group start to slowly line up. Partly through discourse, and partly through the essential human desire to "fit in" with a group, you see the overall opinion drift towards a single point, often more extreme than the original standpoint of any one member.

This is because the group is defined by that single opinion, and strengthening it is a way of strengthening the bonds of the group. Adherence to that single viewpoint becomes a requirement of membership, full-force rationalization kicks in and soon enough, every single member of the group has aligned his or her world view to the dogma.

You see it everywhere. MRM, Feminism, Liberalism, Socialism, online communities in general and the LBGT(Q) movement. And the greater the perceived oppression, the more pronounced the effect.

This is why reasonable people cannot revolt, and stay reasonable. Interest groups is where reason goes to die.

It has always been said by the feminists that it's men who are the ones responsible for suppressing female sexuality, Instead, the evidence favors the view that women have worked to stiﬂe each other’s sexuality because sex is a limited esource that women use to negotiate with men, and scarcity gives women an advantage.

Thank you for an interesting article. I feel however you are denying the historical realities gender roles in different social classes. The working poor have never had an easy life no matter which gender they were; and generally I suspect thier partnerships were based on the idea of pulling together and trying to survive; as opposed to ideas about the importance of women. Most lower class women would work in either small agriculture or domestic servitude; and many still do in many parts of the world. These jobs, while not as dangerous as some of men's jobs, have tended to place women vulnerable to rape, and the offspring very socially disadvantaged. Think of Strom Thurmond's children with his black maid...did they reap any of the benefits of having an influential father?I think you should examine whether the things you are saying apply to all gender relations, or just those among the elite.

Um, I'm no Strom Thurmond fan, and giving myself a bit of a rash just saying this, but, he had one black child, he always maintained a relationship with her, made sure she was taken care of, paid for her college education, and she was/is proud to be his daughter. So um, you know, that's a whole complicated thing, but when it came to being his daughter, she did reap the benefits of being a powerful man's daughter. Probably not as much as her white siblings but...

Um [scratch scratch] OK look, I'm just setting the record straight, not trying to make the guy out to be a hero, which he certainly was not. Just... comparatively speaking, she didn't grow up impoverished.

I was wondering if you had any comments on the value of men vs. women in eastern societies. Eastern societies seem to value men to the point where the "Who stays on the boat" rule no longer stands. The most significant example of this would be the male/female birth ratios in eastern countries.

Also, as someone who got their degree in philosophy, I really love the way you take your time and explain things instead of simply stating your opinions as take-it-or-leave it propositions, or worse, self-evident truths that someone needs to be an idiot to contradict.

While I don't disagree with anything, as a middle-aged white American male who's been through the divorce ringer, I think it all boils down to simple math.

A man marries. He has children with his wife. He divorces -- often simply at his wife's whim.

The man loses everything, exiting the marriage with little more than the clothes on his back -- literally. He'll see his children at his ex-wife's whim, and she is free to move them thousands of miles away.

Many ex-wives do.

Just look at this from a cost-benefits analysis. A man enters a marriage well-adjusted and possibly financially stable. He exits as a psychologically-damaged pauper -- which he will be for the rest of his LIFE.

It's not just one or two men that this happens to: it's the overwhelming majority. Exiting marriage as a damaged pauper is the NORM.

What possible short-term benefit could be had when the end leaves a person damaged and penniless?

Sex? Is that all? Are you INSANE?!

There simply is no longer any benefit to marriage for a man. In fact, it's precisely the reverse. Any Western man marrying today is essentially agreeing to leave the marriage a damaged pauper.

Again: ARE YOU INSANE?

I will never again marry. I advise every young man I know to not marry. Hell, I would advise my daughters' suitors to not marry, if it came to that. My daughters are extraordinary individuals, but this is a simple matter of law. The law demands that the man exits the marriage a damaged pauper.

Tell your sons to be like my husband and ONLY date women with money. Then, it will be likely that the woman will exit the marriage a pauper.

It works out well for the guy. My husband is really attractive and charming, so he can get away with doing this. He has a BFF who is naturally good at pick-up, and that guy also seems to get with women who are both attractive and well-off. Why not?

We do not have a pre-nup, but rather a verbal agreement that if we divorce, I will pay him X amount for however many years he needs it to get back on his feet. But I hope we die married. I am a latchkey child of divorce (my dad actually got custody and alimony – this happened over 20 years ago which was very radical and unheard of for its time...and as a teen, I helped him WIN, haha!), and divorce is bullshit.

p.s. We got married because we're both queer, and our state frowns on "the wrong kind of people" (read: us) getting hitched. So that's exactly WHY we did it – as a middle-finger to our state, and to the anti-queerness of the institution. Also, I wanted my husband to inherit my money and make my end-of-life choices, not anyone else. I know as a straight man, marriage looks like a shit deal to you, but we have both been in serious same-sex relationships where we would be denied basic inheritance and decision-making rights thanks to how conservative our state is. I guess you don't appreciate how important that stuff is until you're faced with being denied it due to your sexual orientation.

Didn't mean to lecture...and if marriage is not for you or your kids, then skip it...and best of luck to you. I see things through the GLBTQ lens before I see them through a pro-male or pro-female lens, that's all.

I think my neck may be sore from nodding at everything in this post. This is truely a breath of fresh air as I recently (and quietly) turned down an invite to a "Slut Walk." I initially wanted to write in the group "I do not want to be surrounded by raging feminists who degrade us just for being male over something one idiot said a couple of years ago," but obviously thought better of it due to the fact that I don't really feel like being scolded by said raging feminists (I know too many sadly).

I used to often openly question things like why it was okay for women to say things like "MEN ARE PIGS" and why it was okay for men in several forms of media to be portrayed as the mindless imbicil, but completely sinful to reverse it on women. Of course every time was responded with hostility or the age old "Because women don't have the same priviledges" comments.

Reading this blog has shone a spark of hope in me. I'm going to stop rambling now!

Yes – and try being female and wanting nothing to do with the SlutWalk agenda (sex-poz feminists) or the men/bi/trans-bashing agenda (rad fems).

They will tell you to fuck off and die (in so many words), especially if you make the error of bringing up a real issue, like all the people in Africa dying of AIDS. If you're not down with their "protect the little women...I mean victims" mentality, you're gonna be the target of wrath like no other.

(I do disagree with one of your points, which is that the media portrays women positively. Look at celebrity culture for example – any female celebrity can be picked apart at any time, but for a male celebrity to get that level of scrutiny, he has to pull a Charlie Sheen. And female randoms [non-famous] often dominate the headlines in the ever-popular "bad mother/slutty woman" stories. Men and women are both portrayed badly by the media, just in different areas.)

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I read through the entirety of the blog in the past day. I appreciate your writing. I think you do a really good job of highlighting the inconsistencies in feminist group think that leap out to people like me who are liberal, for gender equality, but don't consider themselves activists tied to any specific agenda.

My main complaint is the overwhelming tendency of anyone with a political agenda to demonize their opposition. The desire to win becomes more important than the open exchange of ideas.

Though not everything you write resonates with me, I appreciate that it is all reasonably written.

Finally! A real woman! Telling it the way it needs to be told for the love of her children and humanity. We really should talk. I would like to ask you for permission for some links and collaboration with some friends. Thank you for your huge heart. Peace! Parents and Their Children (Admin) Please forward a contact email or number to reach you.

1) GWW, i've found this and maybe I'll save you the work of typing or something. Is it correct? This vid was a greatest hit, lol, and it's on the top of my list. And the first line, "male-six-base"... "male-safe space" See, sociolinguistics, pronunciation, it all kills! :)

Found it here: http://zelaron.com/forum/showthread.php?t=50864

Aldir.

Feminism and the Disposable male

Not too long ago, I headed out with a feminist who had come into a male-safe space from a feminist blog, just to scoff at the idea of male disposability.

She she went there and basically said that the entire concept was a myth, that men’s lived experiences were completely wrong, that they were just a bunch of whiners who were complaining over nothing.

Yeah…. Anyhow, that got me thinking about the concept of male disposability and how that interacts with the feminist movement.

Male disposability’s been around since the dawn of time. And it’s based on one very, very straightforward dynamic: When it comes to the well being of others, they come first, men come last. This is just the way it has always been. Seats in lifeboats, being rescued from burning buildings, who gets to eat.

Really, society places men dead last, every time. And society expects men to place themselves dead last, every time.

Humans have always had a dynamic of “women and children first,” and that has not changed at all. The 93% workplace death gap has to be evidence of this, if only because nobody with any kind of importance or power is interested in changing it, at all.

In fact, I remember reading an article in the BC paper not long ago that described the increasing proportion of female injuries on the job as a huge problem. And in the insane thing was that the change reflected a decrease in male injuries rather than an increase in female ones. Men’s injuries on the job had gone down because the economic downturn had put so many men out of work in the resource sector that there just weren’t as many trees or pieces of heavy equipment falling on men as there had been before. Yet, this was framed as a huge problem for women that required immediate actions to solve.

2) It’s just crazy! It’s like, if men aren’t dying at work at twenty times the rate women, are we must be doing something wrong as a society.

Back when we were still living in caves, that attitude was necessary for human survival. Nature’s a really harsh mistress, especially when you think of all the animals that never, ever get to die of old age. Things were a lot different for humans through most of our history on this planet than they are now. Life was dangerous, human settlements were small, isolated from each other, and [so] one big disaster that took out a lot of women pretty much meant the end of the entire shebang for that group of people.

So, really, the level of importance that a human settlement placed on the wellbeing of women and children reflected, almost always, how successful that settlement was. And that can be expanded to encompass entire societies.

I keep hearing from the feminist camp that femaleness has always really been undervalued by society and that maleness is preferred, but I have always contended that it’s the exact opposite. The feminine is intrinsically and individually valuable, simply because females are the limiting factor in reproduction of any species. When it comes to producing babies, every woman counts, whereas (biologically), one very happy man could probably do the work of hundreds in that regard. So, the level of instinctive importance we humans place on the safety of provision of women and their children—it’s one of the main reasons why we’ve been able to be so successful that we come to really dominate this planet.

And while I will concede that this drive to keep women safe from all harm has often resulted in extreme limits being placed on women’s mobility, their agency, their power of decision to direct their own lives, all through history in many cultures, and in many cultures even today, I think it’s telling that those cultures tend to be the most backwards.

When you consider the restrictions placed on women in places like Afghanistan, and then you consider that, if we bomb them into the stone age, it would be progress, I think you can conclude the most successful societies had a really good balance between allowing women freedom and the ability to choose and direct their own paths in life, and the need to protect them and provide for them.

However, feminists will insist that these kinds of restrictions in those kinds of societies are the ultimate form of objectification. You lock up your possessions to make sure they will never be lost, or stolen, or harmed.

Honestly, if I were a guy on a battlefield, I might appreciate being objectified in that way. I think if I was going to be an object, I’d rather be a sexual one, or somebody’s prized possession, than an object that can simply be thrown in the trash or smashed into pieces in the service of somebody else’s purpose.

Feminists also have a very simplistic idea that our willingness to absolve women of their crimes, slap them on their wrists, spare them punishment, comes from a deep disrespect society has for their personhood. Not seeing them as full human beings capable of looking after themselves, that we see them as children who don’t know any better. And, yeah, while there are parallels in our desire to protect women and children from not only their own poor decisions but the full consequences of their shitty behavior, it’s really not as simple as they try to make it out to be.

I mean, seriously, even today—even today, in 2011—we fully expect that, if it comes down to a man and a woman in a burning building and you can only save one, the expectation is that you choose the woman, every single time. So honestly, whose humanity are we placing above whose here? We’re not talking about going to work, we’re not talking about getting an education, we’re not talking about having freedom to decide what you want to be in life, and we’re not talking about getting to take Taekwondo. We’re talking seats and lifeboats here. The person in the lifeboat is going to survive no matter how capable or incapable they are of managing their own life, and the person who went down with the ship is going to die no matter how independent, self-sufficient, and awesome he is.

That’s the equation. One life, more valuable than another, and the woman wins every time.

So, honestly, is there any argument, anywhere, that women’s humanity has always been held in higher regard by society than men’s?

To be important to society, a woman merely has to be. A man has to do in order for his life to have any meaning to anyone other than himself.

I think it was Man, Woman, Myth who said, “Our society reduces men from human beings to human doings,” and I really think that’s an apt analogy. We measure a man’s worthiness to where the title of man, and therefore the title of human, through how useful he is either to society or to women. And one of the most useful things a man can do, even now, in the eyes of society is to put women and children before himself.

And while I think there’s plenty of argument that this attitude is at least partly innate, the way most survival traits are, even collective ones, if it starts in the chromosomes, we really do everything we can as a society to reinforce this dynamic. Studies have shown that even though baby boys tend to cry and fuss more than baby girls, parents are quicker to attend to or console a baby girl than they are a baby boy. Even just the level of acceptance of infant male circumcision in our culture when female genital mutilation was banned pretty much the first afternoon we all heard it existed, really says a lot about the differing expectations we have for males and females.

I mean, speaking as a mother, the last thing I would have ever wanted was to hear my child cry, especially when they’re at an age when they’re completely helpless, completely at the mercy of outside forces, and utterly dependent on the adults in their lives for every last thing. And yet, even knowing how painful that cut is, we expect baby boys—only days old, for fuck’s sake—to just suck that up.

And just think about what these very first interactions and experiences, these differences in how we nurture our babies depending on what gender they are, what this teaches them.

What do we teach baby girls when we attend to their crying so quickly? We teach them to ask for help because their needs are important. We teach them to let us know when they’re afraid or in pain because it’s important for us to know when they’re sick or in danger or hurt, so we can do something about it! We teach them that when they’re sad, or lonely, to summon comfort and comfort will be there. We teach them that they’re important, their needs and wellbeing, both emotional and physical, are important, just because.

And what are teaching baby boys when leave them to cry? We teach them there’s not much point in seeking help because it will be grudgingly given, if at all. We teach them that they should become self-contained in their ability to deal with emotions like fear, helplessness, loneliness, sadness, pain, distress. We teach them stoicism. We teach them to suck it up. We teach them that their fear and their pain are things that are best ignored. We teach them that their emotional and physical wellbeing are just not as important as other things.

I mean, given all of that, is it any wonder it’s like pulling teeth to get a man to go to the doctor when he’s sick‽

What we’re teaching that baby boy is all the things a man needs to know and feel and believe about himself if he’s going to stand in front of a cabin with a rifle while his wife and kids hide inside. We’re preparing him for the day he has to fix a bayonet to a rifle and charge a hill under enemy fire, and we’re preparing him to make a decision to resign himself to an icy fate while women and children escape in the lifeboats. We are really teaching him to internalize his own disposability.

And baby girls? By attending to her crying so quickly, by letting her know she’s inherently important to us, we’re preparing her for the day she has to think of her own safety first, even if it means the man she loves is left standing alone with a rifle in front of a cabin. We’re preparing her to take that seat in the lifeboat. We’re training her to not allow guilt or empathy or acknowledgment of a man’s humanity, or any sense that he might just maybe deserve it more, to convince her to give her seat to him, because for millennia, the human species absolutely depended on her feeling 100% entitled to that seat.

And that brings me to feminism.

You know, the patriarchy smashers, those righteous avengers of equality, dogged dismantlers of every single gender role. What exactly is feminism doing to dismantle this traditional role of the disposable male?

Feminism’s greatest victories have only reinforced in everyone that society still owes women provision, protection, help, and support, just because they’re women. In its collective dismissal and abandonment of male victims of domestic violence, it only reinforces in men that it’s pointless for them to ask for help because men’s needs are of no relevance, and their fear and pain don’t mean anything to anyone.

Feminism teaches us to put women’s needs at the forefront of every single issue, political or social, whether that issue is domestic violence law, sexual assault law, institutional sexism, social safety net, education funding, homeless shelters, government funding for shovel-ready jobs that didn’t stay shovel-ready once feminists got wind of them. Everywhere you look, everywhere you look, there are feminists pushing their way to the front of the line demanding women’s “fair share” of all of the goodies, the good stuff, the loot, the booty, the cookies. Even if women don’t need it, even if women don’t deserve it, and even if somebody else needs it and deserves it more.

And they get it, because we give it to them.

Feminism has done nothing but exploit this dynamic of the expectation on men to put everybody else before themselves, especially women. Women’s safety and support, women’s wellbeing and women’s emotional needs, always come first. This is the most stunning piece of society-wide manipulative psychology I think I have ever come across.

Feminism has been on the down-low with old-school chivalry right from the start. And they might seem like strange bedfellows for sure, but they’re not, because both concepts are built on a firm foundation of female self-interest.

We made our way as humans through a really harsh history, and we became the dominant force on this planet, and one of the reasons we were so successful is because we have consistently put women’s basic needs first. Their need for safety, support, and provision. It was in humanity’s best interest for women to be essentially self-interested, and for men to be essentially self-sacrificing.

But we don’t need that dynamic anymore.

I mean, our species is in no danger of extinction. I mean, we’re 7 billion people, clogging up the works here. What’s the worst that could happen if we all just collectively decided that men were no more disposable than women and women were no more valuable than men?

In fact, the greatest danger I see to us right now is that in our desperation to bend over and give women everything they want and everything that they say they need, we’ve unbalanced society to the point where we’re just in danger of seriously toppling over.

And really, the only difference I see between the traditional role and the new one for men, with respect to disposability, is that maleness—manhood—it used to be celebrated, it used to be admired, and it used to be rewarded, because it was really fucking necessary, and because the personal cost of it to individual men was so incredibly high. But now?

Now, we still expect men to put women first, and we still expect society to put women first, and we still expect men to not complain about coming in dead last every damn time. But men don’t even get our admiration anymore. All they get in return is to hear about what assholes they are. Is it any wonder they’re starting to get pissed off?

Anyhow, that’s not all I have to say about this subject, but it is all I have to say about it today since my kid is about to walk in the door home from school, so I am going to sign off and hopefully I will see you all again.

Yes, my husband likes the YouTube channel as well. I miss things when absorbing information through my ears so I have to stick with the blog. Reading is the better choice for me. = D

I wanted to share my recent experience with a job interview at a large "family-friendly workplace."

First off, the position they were bringing me in for was intended to upstage another manager's. But they couldn't TELL me I was competing with anyone – we had to all be niceness and smiles. In three interviews, I never did get consensus on what my role would be.

Secondly, the position was advertised as having a casual dress code, a flexible start time, etc. But when I inquired about this, the woman I'd be reporting to told me, "Oh MY department doesn't really do that. Well the lower-levels do do." (Look of 'knowing' disgust. All the lower-levels are men.) But we all come in by 8:30 ("we," being the women, I guess), and you need to look NICE.

Um, no. I am not going to play the little ladies' social head games. The company has "casual dress" and "flex start time" in its policy manual. If other people get it, so do I. If the prissy ladies don't LIKE it, they can damn well work somewhere else. Here's a prime example of women getting into a male-dominated field (tech) and looking around and clucking at all those men starting at 10 and wearing jeans and deciding they have to make it prissy.

The last straw for me was how I was treated in my interview with a very high-level person. She and I agreed on a mutually workable time. I woke up early, wasted my time prepping, etc. I buzz her to tell her I'm ready and she goes, "Sorry, I have my kids with me today. Let's do this tomorrow at 10."

I'm silent, thinking, "Fuck you and your kids, lady." Outwardly, I say, "I'm not free at 10 tomorrow." So I ask her a few questions about the job, company, etc., that the other wimps I interviewed with have been too afraid to answer. Turns out that, even though it's frowned upon for me to wear jeans or start later (despite it being enumerated in the company handbook), all the women can bring their kids to work whenever they want. And not JUST in cases of emergencies, as is enumerated in the company handbook, but anytime, with any flimsy excuse at all.

I can't deal with daycare in the workplace. I am not working with the sound of kids running around and screaming all day – I will screw up my work, and it's already challenging enough for me to concentrate due to my difficulties processing information. I guess I will go back to applying at male-dominated companies. It may be odd being the only woman there, and I may get paid less for the same work and experience – sorry, this is still going on in the Midwestern US – and I may have to prove that I am not a wilting little priss, that I don't want kids, that I love to swear, and they can even invite me to the strip club, and my next boss, like my previous ones, may not trust or respect me as much. But at least everyone will tell the truth, and I won't work at a daycare with idiots who cancel willy nilly because they actually CAN'T have it all.

On the subject of feminizing workplaces as well, check this out: http://shine.yahoo.com/secrets-to-your-success/australian-company-iag-rewards-moms-returning-185600273.html.

I would pay them NOT to come back, personally. I can't tell you the number of times I've worked 18-hour days because a parent (now, more and more a man as well as a woman) had to leave at 4 on the dot to pick up the kids. The more parents who do primary childcare we have in the workplace, the longer my days get. Stop trying to do 2 full-time jobs and pick one or the other. (That goes for you, too, men at my last job who stuck me with all the work so you could leave at 4.)

I don't know if I agree that men had no reason to have some group identity that women needed. Even back in the day I don't think most men wanted to steal another man's wife and children any more then today. Lawless men could only learn that from being brought up in a lawless home.

In times of abundance or even times of ok conditions men could still compete and not feel that therefore they couldn't find a woman for themselves. There is a 50-50 ratio of men to women.

Men have had to work together for common causes. Whther it be working to build a bridge or other work that required men working together . In fact in this new "feminist" world we live in it is this that sort of frowns on men working together in any area which existed throughout history. And if men do this they must be gay or something. It is today where men can't work in a group as there always have to be women around.

The view that two men spending time together = homosexuality is generally upheld, policed, and enforced by men. My husband and I have spent tons of time in working-class communities, reading working-class manifestos, and watching such people in action, and this is a common theme. "Fag" was a favorite epithet thrown around during my formative years, and it was reserved, by the "top dog" guys, for any man who didn't adhere to a strict and narrow version of masculinity.

Like women, men have to decide what they want. If it's to reinforce the machismo depicted in 1950s movies and sitcoms, then that's one thing. If it's a breakdown of gender stereotypes, that's something else. Most MRA manifestos I've read claim that men are missing their historical and rightful masculinity, which has been stolen from them by women. But the archetype they aspire to is Clint Eastwood, and the time period they pine for is the 50s, where the lone wolf reigned as the penultimate type of manhood. (This archetype was largely myth in the first place, but it has a romantic ring to it I suppose. Prior to the early 20th century, when Freudian psychoanalysis was not de rigeur, men spending time together was not suspect.)

Feminism has nothing to do with it. This is a men's issue, and one men must decide for themselves. Is keeping the company of men gay? Or is it a good thing? You guys make the rules here, not us women.

i read his point as being women will push their way into any space where men are working or relating together, not that they will ridicule it, but that they will co-opt it.

It is my experience that women fin male spaces and male relationships threatening and if they can't busybody their way in, they will feminist rights their way in.

I've worked in a lot of shitty jobs that tend to employ only men, and men often come in happily up to an hour early and stay just as late, just to sit and have some coffee and talk about whatever is in the paper with each other, assumably by themselves--without women. They aren't calling each other fags. They actually seem relaxed and at peace.

I was following along quite nicely until you said that women had a bias for own-group preference.

Some women might, but you seem to be looking at a segment of the female population - not the entirety. See, first sample: I gots all the ladybits, so that makes me a woman, but not that bias. Is defective? And I see loads of women who don't seem to get along "just because they're women". In fact, I'm having trouble thinking of a single woman I know who exhibits this behavior.

What a fabulous post! I love your whole blog, I have been reading and watching videos in between everything else I needed to get done since this morning. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being a much needed voice! I do not feel quite so alone now.

With people like you, there will be hope for my sons futures after all! I believe in a free world where people are people and due to that I have lost most of my friends and family and my husband lost his family as well due to our beliefs. It is sad that just appreciating someone as human (male or female, white, black, red or purple, etc) is seen as a crime. I love to get to know people and see that ALL people have their strengths and they ALL have their weaknesses. In the future...it could be seen as a crime just to be human...oh dear.

The Private Man linked to your site. After reading this, I just wanted to say I'm surprised to see a woman understand and clearly articulate the deeper issues affecting men and the sex market. Quoting Heartiste while channeling Dalrock and other red pill heavy-hitters - awesome.

As a man, I don't even seek out female companionship, let alone courtship followed by marriage. Throughout my life the women I've met (short of one precious jewel) have shown me that my loves and labors were not only unimportant, but something to be ridiculed. Whether I spoke of Shadow of the Colossus, to The Metamorphosis, from Art Blakey's Moanin' to Aronofsky's Pi, I've been ridiculed and ostracized for simply being...well...myself!

And as far as sex goes, pff, forget about it. From women I've dated to casual acquaintances, it's become evident to me that if you're not champing at the bit, or are bisexual (or worse, in my case, both), then you're simply gay, a fool, or both.

When a date invited me to stay for "coffee" one evening, I declined. After that night, she treated me like a leper. I admit that I felt the part as well. I remember when a female acquaintance asked me if I was gay after mentioning a man I had met was cute, and after I had mentioned I was bisexual, I was promptly told that bisexual was merely a code word for being gay. I suppose I was just mistaken, then.

If other men have had similar experiences with women in their lives, then it would seem that they'd be wise to steer clear.

The majority of the women I've met have made something very clear to me: I'm irrelevant.

Careful when you say, "And yes, I'm exaggerating, but you see my point."

Actually, you pretty much nailed exactly what I seem to be facing: (1) biological clock, thinks she's settling, (2) divorcee who is UN-SELF-AWARE of the fact that she financially annihilated and emotionally crippled another man, (3) mommy not collecting child support because yes-indeed, baby-daddy's income is off the books because he IS a drug dealer.

Only you left some out: a few, ages 32-46, who have retained aspects of attractiveness but on account of their lack of children + attractiveness, the WILDLY overvalue themselves in the SMV, only having passed their sexual peaks, and having "grown up" and realized that their childish/girlish years of sleeping around with alphas is in their pasts, either seek to conceal their 25ish previous sex partners or can't understand why I, now in my SMV peak for the first time in my life, may not care so much for the "commitment" of women like them, or might feel enticed by my chance to live it up with the 10s, just like they did.

Do you want a return to traditional gender roles and a realization of why those roles worked? Or do you want a type of gender reform that in a way nullifies, yet appeases the uniquely male and female characteristics of their mental functioning? I personally want a society where gender roles are less restrictive, where men aren't really regarded as less of a man or rather, less of a person for example for being effeminate, but I am also a deeply competitive person. It's kind of in my nature that my best friends are people I am engaged in "war" with, and they are my best friends precisely because I can do that with them. I want a platform for those types of expressions to exist too.

However I can't really gauge from these videos exactly what you are pushing for, despite all the elegant points and insights into male and female nature and sexuality. I know you want to repair relations as opposed to the pick up artists, but I'm not sure what repair means here.

recent effort on the part of I can only assume to be a traditionalist woman, in trying to figure out what the heck is wrong with men these days. As so many traditionalists and feminists before her, she missed the mark by a freaking mileFunny how many investigators cant get to the bottom of the problem. I found this really short TED video where the guy attributes the internet, video games and porn as the CAUSE (while it really is just a symptom)Philip Zimbardo: The demise of guys?

The myth among feminists that men will insult each other for displaying feminine traits because they see women as inferior is just that--a myth. Men do this because women have a trump card that bestows intrinsic value on them--their uteruses--and they retain that value even when they gender-bend a little. A woman who acts like a woman is not seen as inferior. A man who acts like a woman has always been seen not as a woman, but as a "woman without a womb". He has no female value, and he has no male value. Therefore, he has NO value at all. And unlike women, men who were not "useful" did--and still do--get thrown on the trash heap of society.

... I'm not so sure that I buy it. For one, it doesn't explain the insults hurled against women for "acting like men" ("dyke" being perhaps the most obvious example). If a "butch" women (actual sexual orientation, for the sake of this argument, is irrelevent) retains her uterus, her value, by your logic, cannot be taken away. Even if she is perceived as unlikely to use that womb, you certainly don't see this caliber of insult being used against women who elect not to have children.

Moreover, a man calling another man a "fag" is an inherently subordinating gesture. Since the issue at stake is masculinity in this case, the former posits his superior masculinity by symbolically castrating the latter. While I'm not particularly inclined toward traditional psychoanalysis, the woman is posited in this discourse as the castrated male--she exists in relation to, and as the irreducible opposite, of man. Not vice versa, however, as the burden of "lack" is placed squarely on the woman (there is reason I'm using psychoanalytic language here, so please bear with me). The insulting of effeminate men by other men does not remove sexual agency. While the "fag" has no *reproductive* value, the implication isn't that he serves no purpose, but that his purpose is to serve other men. By getting fucked in the ass. The "fag" therefore burdened not with the lack of womb, but the lack of a penis. The only way he can be "whole" is through the Other. This is why you'll see instances of otherwise "straight" men in torture/POW scenarios raping their captive--the humilation stems from being "fucked like a woman." While obviously more extreme than being a called a fag, the tenor of this act remains the same. And since the women is inferior, because she lacks the phallus, so is the effeminate male.

Conversely, the "dyke" is inferior because she too lacks a phallus, but is perceived as simultaneously desiring and refusing one. Hence, the corrective rape of lesbians--if her lack is temporarily suspended by acquisition of the phallus (jouissance)*, she'll stop denying her natural drive (past the pleasure principle)*.

contrary to various sexist explanations for why men might call each other fags, most often, it seems to me, they are actually being playful and affectionate with each other (it took me a long time to figure this somewhat obvious truth).

a more subtextual reason they do it, is they have an unconscious confusion at their desire for and enjoyment of male relationships, as they have been taught not to have them but instead to let women hold the reigns to all their emotional intimacy. so it is the equivalent of a nervous laugh and later an affirmation of friendship. men jab each other it is part of male relationships. it isn't a shortcoming simply because it isn't the way females relate to each other. so i don't see it as an "inherently subordinating gesture".

I also don't see any parallel between this social custom and sexual violence as a tool of war that can be applied to both men and women.

in war, women are often subject to the most heinous violences, not because they are seen as inferior, but because they are understood to be of inherently high value and violating them can really demoralize the enemy while at the same time confuse tribal lineage from resultant pregnancies.

People try and make this stuff more complex than it is and usually because they are building a political agenda for an unrelated matter, such as identity politics.

This is sort of Forum Necromancy, but I feel the need to point this out:

She stated, "Men do this because women have a trump card that bestows intrinsic value on them--their uteruses--and they retain that value even when they gender-bend a little."

A "dyke" still has a uterus. Now by stepping into a "male" role, she is further devaluing the men. Now, this isn't necessarily true and in my experience, it hasn't been but there are natural red flags that kick off in a man's mind. Primal instinct and all that.

Men get a lot of competition to be "something" from other men, when women start stepping into that arena, it is instinctual to lash out.

That is how it fits into the argument. You can agree or disagree. I care not. But the answers were there. And all around.

This is the most common path to a positive male identity BECAUSE MEN LACK A MECHANISM FOR AUTOMATIC OWN-GROUP PREFERENCE. Simply put, they do not relate to other men automatically, just because they're men.

You are awesome. I think I have heard one of your youtube posts before. I am a straight 40 y.o. single man. I would love to be married but ruined the relationship with the woman I should have married years ago because I had the attention of other women at the time. You remind me of her in a way. Plain-spoken and honest (and pretty). Many of the women I have gone out with since are exactly as you describe: somehow demanding and emasculating but also coming across as demure to everyone else. Its weird. Its like if I was abusive to my wife but people overlooked it. I'm rambling. Anyway, I love your viewpoints (ones that I have read/heard) and you seem to have a spot-on perspective of current social dynamics. I suggest 1. You write e-books; u r a good writer! 2. Gain some notoriety by going on Anderson Cooper or talkshows as a post-modern feminist or an anti-feminist. I think this will give you a lot of dominion over your career and you would do really well.

You've nailed it. As one of the smartest men I've ever heard has said "dont confuse my opinion with facts, I've already made up my mind!" You have broken down another "us against them " dynamic that seeks to keep us from growth. I cannot stand to pee without making a horrible mess for a reason....ghandi wasn't a defense lawyer for a reason... we have our tasks in this life, better to learn the lesson than skip a valuable one and have to do it all over. Balance is the key. Embrace what and who you are and run with it without it being at the cost of another, and if the same respect isn't shown to you in return....good effin luck to them in the next go 'round.

I have to admit that I've taken some pleasure watching graphs showing the colapse of marriage. Since men aren't allowed to comment about feminism without risk to their jobs and social standing, there appears to be a silent protest of men just giving the fuck up. In the meantime, cable channels devoted to women still show reality shows about marriage. It's clear that women generally want marriage to survive while men couldn't care less.

Hello, I recently caught your video via youtube about Feminism and The Disposable Male. I'm not going to bore you with the details, you can check that if you're interested or would like to join in and contribute (would be much appreciated) - we recently opened a forum about the Demise of Guys in which we're covering modern men and masculinity, defining that and many topics depending on what comes up. If you're interested that would be awesome and i'll catch you over there! If you're too busy or you're not I completely understand :)

Here is the link if you're interested, cheers for the talks they're all very much appreciated. http://personalitycafe.com/sex-relationships/118375-demise-guys.html

Hi I will try to sum all of ur problems in few points:1. Ur religion/believe is misguided (u should become Muslims)2. Promiscuity/adultery has been Uncriminalized! (should be slashed/stoned/shot or forced to married)3. u r too materialistic (back to point 1)4. u have enforced the equality between the unequala. The more rights Women gain the more rights Men lose b. White Men no longer feel they are Men (big problem) ur white race will get extinct. c. White Men prefer Asian women --> more family values n submissive as a wife should be, making a man feel that he is the king of his house. 5. U turned ur women into men.6. U have wiped out Men's Manly space by shoving women into their thoughts everywhere even in the Army. 7. U teaches ur girls to become whores since a very early age by enforcing mixed schools/colleges/universities/work (should be segregated)8. Modesty not bikini 9. Men aggression is punishable severely! it is a crime to be act like a Man (testosterone anyone)?10. A women sculpt country --> leads to man immigration to another place i.e. push factor11. u show nude women on cable TV! N propagate Porn, immorality,…12. u encourage wives to revolt on husbands, children revolt on father i.e. destroyed the hierarchy status in a family. 13. nobody is doing anything about it since ur Gov doesn't represent the ppl but rather intentionally Divide to conquer you.14. …

Salaam Ali Baba Al-Arba3een Haraami,As a Muslim, I am uncomfortable even addressing you like that because your sentiments are embarrassingly unIslamic and I am ashamed that people have come to associate the image of Islam with the likes of you.To your points:1.You don't need Islam nor any other religion for morals and even the Quran points this out. 2.Islam and Prophet Muhammad (S) never called for violence or retribution for adultery as violent as you say, and forced into marriage is haram=prohibited.3.This post is anything but materialistic but addressing sociological issues, which is considered altruistic, Islamically.4.Allah (SWT) says in many suras that women and men are created equal and even addresses both men and women in jurisdictional aspects. I can give you the ayats if you please and save your time if you're translating them into violent meanings.a.Allah says that rights are given into equal proportion to both men and women so that they will balance each other.5&6 just contradict each other and are ridiculously untenable.7. The sahaabat of Prophet Muhammad (S) would always converse with and in front of the opposite sex for educational purposes and Khadija (R) was in charge of her own business (read: modern day CEO) and interacted with men all the time. 8.Modesty of women are not your business (and neither are other men yet you fail to mention that even though you probably don't have an issue with men going shirtless). And religious laws aren't enforced and shouldn't be, especially from the ayat of "there shall be no compulsion in religion"9.Yes, sometimes male aggression is unfairly punished when circumstances don't include any violence but from your previous points I would construe male aggression to something a bit more violent.Everything else is just so low and irrelevant to your Taqwa that you might as well put it on Youtube so that the only attention you'll be getting once in awhile is from the NSA.

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These are some recollections;We talked of a shared life - she moved in and i bought two new wardrobes for her clothes.I opened my wardrobe to find my clothes shoved to one end and hers occupying the other half. But I'd didn't mind because I wanted a shared life.I opened the bathroom cupboard to take my razor and can of foam, and it wasn't where it had been before and momentarily in the dark early morning I was lost. In their place were strange jars of stuff that meant nothing to me.Then one day she announced she was taking the day off to spring clean. A few days later in the kitchen I reached for the pan and it was gone, and I realised that everything had moved and now no longer could I see the things I used. I asked her where they were, and she said with impatience "Here they are!" handing me the items. But I couldn't see them under the counter because I am six feet tall and she's five foot three. And then my guitars and amps were moved to a corner from close to the centre of the room for a party for our / her friends. And next they migrated to the hall, and a coffee table and vases appeared.And then one day I walked through the door and I realised that I hadn't left home. Home had left me, inch by inch until it wasn't my home anymore. And there only sharing of a life was my portion of the life she had made in the space that had once been my exclusive space and my life had faded away like an old sepia photo.

I'm getting a distinct sense that I'm late to the MRA party; I'd bought into the popular image of the MRM as at best a few genuine grievances lost in a sea of rabid dickbaggery. Of course, when I looked closer I could see a lot of good ideas there - but it wasn't until I read this that it clicked for me, and I want to thank you for that.

It may seem petty, especially given my pre-existing feelings about family law but what got me was the discussion on the feminisation of the workplace - is it really so terrible of me to want to say fuck at work?I mean setting aside the fact that I honestly just don't get how a non-directed phoneme is offensive, I grew up Army - I picked up swearing as punctuation and an artform, as a way of providing emotional context and a method through which to demonstrate wit.It shapes my discourse, and frankly it improves it - and until someone can explain why, exactly, their feelings were hurt by my using the phrase "Arsing about" I'm going to keep on thinking maybe people should consider adapting to their environment instead of whining for the big mean men to fix it for them....I'm sorry, that may have come out slightly more vitriolic than intended! It's just, it strikes me as hypoagency used as a means of control which boggles the fucking mind - how can that be anything other than massively hypocritical or worryingly schizophrenic?

I don't know if you men are aware or hell for that matter women too, but there are plenty of white and black men headed east fot traditional women who honor and revere men as men instead of tools ot get the most expensive high heels...what woman needs all the garbage she has in her closet? Who is she trying to impress? Like the Lenny Kravitz song says "American Woman, stay away from me!!!!" a few generations will have to die out first before this stuff changes...in the mean time I suggest men, no matter your color get you a foreign woman. It's a reason why you can buy brides online, you come out cheaper in the long run

I wonder if this has been a part of the rise in entrepreneurship for men. (Women as well but, possibly, for different reasons) I quit my job a few years ago to start my own business. Thinking back on it and reflecting on the points made in your video, it was a couple years after a divorce. I HAD indeed built an identity around being a Husband. Capitol 'H'. I was proud of it. I didn't have a sense that it was related to my masculinity at the time just that I felt I was doing a good job of it and that made me feel good about it.

Then my wife cheated on me and left. She felt I was not doing a very good job of it and felt she deserved better.

My day job became a routine with no sparkle. I began to feel like I would be a cog forever and I wanted something more substantial. I realm I could prove myself in. After a long depression, I quit my job.

I dated afterward but I really married my business. When women I was dating for a long period of time began to talk marriage, I found myself not interested. I don't want kids or the piece of paper that says I am legitimate. Especially because my small enterprise does not generate much income. I don't have the capacity to raise a family. getting married would mean quitting my struggling business and getting a less desirable job in order to support that family.

I'm happy with my business and I'm happy being single. You mentioned The Buddha leaving the world of responsibility to get fat and not work. It's true, what do I gain from sublimating my future in favor of a wife and kids. It's just Lucy with the football.

Men..Men..Men..Men....don't marry..period. Whoever marry, except the lucky ones which are far few, are going to be slave to her. Mark my word. "Slave to her" Constant nagging, bitching, controlling and always about her. You are invisible to some women after marriage except what you did for her.

Not only that,....MEN..MEN....MEN,.....You are just one call (911) away from getting your life ruined forever. Every ounce of your asset will be taken including your children if any and you will be homeless.

If you are divorced, you lose 70-80%. Children--forget about it. Children are hers.

Men...Men.....ha..ha.. Not only that Government and Feminists are not going to let you be free anyway..You have to pay child support and ALIMONYYYY...forever (more than 18 years..).

Remember any of this can happen without your own fault if your wife feels like she is bored in marriage or want to get some action outside..,,,,,,MEN....You are done....

The words (accusations) come out of her mouth will be taken as sworn universal truth, more so than physical gravity law, as evidence. You are and will, by default, get arrested.

Anyone who really wants to marry except the lucky few should have some slavish psycho personality disorder. If you have that, you have to pay to lawyers, Goverment, feminists victom bootcamps and orgs, and your wife....

IT is ugly out there...Visit family court once before you marry. Ask people who are married. There are jim crow laws out there to persecute you. Some people say it is getting more bad every day. Read the laws written and browse the internet. Take wise decision and don't write your own obituary. If you go forward, it is upto you anyway.

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Women are missing the point. Marriage is basically a contract. It was meant to guard against infidelity and support the raising of children.Its been romanticised into some fantasy of perfect everlasting love that transcends time and space and brings you to heights of unsurpassed happiness. Yeah, sure OK.Basically you meet someone and want to spend time with them, supposedly the rest of your lives, but with no-fault divorce anyone can bail out anytime they want for no reason whatsoever. men are penalized for this by having their estates revoked and their wages garnished, but women are rewarded with cash and prizes like a game show.As a man, I have to ask. What's in this for me? If I marry you I have to support you and support our kids. You can cheat and if I leave I pay and you don't. If I cheat I pay again and you don't.What do I get? Zip. Zilch. Nada. No housework expected, no sex unless Simone says, and if I don't like it it costs me a fortune and maybe ever seeing my kids. No thanks.Enjoy your fantasies. Your pillows, dildoes and cats. I don't like the terms offered, and I don't have to do this because marriage is no longer respected anyway...

Great video, really enjoyed your insight. As a man who is recently divorced and wife extorted me for concessions with false accusations (the ex parte system does not even allow you to defend yourself) taken as fact, I have joined the ranks of men that have no plans to ever get married again and is discouraging my children. The unfairness and lack of justice in divorce court has left me emotionally and financially devastated. Unless things change, I think you will find more and more men unwilling to make that commitment.

Testimony On How My Life was Transform through the help of a God-sent Lender.

Hello everyone, I am Kathie Roper by name, am writing this Testimony because am really grateful for what Mason Diego did for me and my family, when I thought there was no hope he came and make my family feel alive again by lending us loan at a very low interest rate of 2%. Well I have been searching for a loan to settle my debts for the past three months all I met scammed and took my money until I finally met a God sent Lender. I never thought that there are still genuine loan lenders on the internet but to my greatest surprise i got my loan without wasting much time so if you are out there looking for a loan of any amount i would advise you to email Mr Diego via email: { diegoloancompany@yahoo.com } and be free of internet scams. thanks... Kathie Roper from California, USA.

All comments are welcome here. I refuse to censor points of view that differ from my own.

I recognize that I may be challenging the deep-seated beliefs of some people, and perhaps stirring up emotions in others. However, I would ask:

- if you care to respond to anything that I have said, please do not simply link to or quote some statistic. Do not simply regurgitate things you have been told are true. Think about what I am saying. Respond with an argument. Offer something from your personal observations, and explain to me how you feel your statistic is connected to your experience.

- If you wish to be part of a discussion, try not to dismiss what I or a another commenter says out of hand. Yes, that means that some lines of thought or ideologies may not stand up to scrutiny (perhaps even my own).

- Remember, ad hominem attacks diminish everyone involved. If you want to criticize anything, do so passionately and directly - but debate is about attacking ideas, not people.